NASA made an incredible breakthrough in propulsion technology in the mid-21st century. But, being a division of the US government, they decided not to share this technology outside the country. Contracts were awarded to both Boeing and Lockheed for the first true spaceliners. The rest, as they say, is history.

BObus will dominate sales worldwide until RANS invents the personal transport capable of flying, hovering, STOL, VTOL, 4x4 at speeds up to Mach 2.2 on hydrogen/H2O fuel cells which fuels the Worldwide Open Skies policy that ends the BObus monopoly and eventually dies.

Here's my prediction:
Airbus will fall in the next 50 years after George Bush's/Hillary Clinton's son turns the US into a communist state, expels the UN,and annexes Russia,Germany,France,and Great Britain. He then forces EADS/Airbus to collapse and then Bill Boeing is brought back from Cryogenic containment and designs an airliner which unfortunately crashes on take-off killing the the "Premier" thereby liberating the United States.

Quoting SEAPlane10 (Reply 2):It just goes to show that predicting even one or two years down the road is tricky.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I think its difficult to predict the future of these two companies because you would have to predict the future and development of the commercial aerospace industry. Perhaps we could see something like the late Stanley Kubrick envisioned in 2001:A Space Odyssey with shuttles being used by "Airlines" to transport people into space.

America will finally admit that Richard Pearce (Kiwi) was the first person to fly, cuasing a hiatus in the production of 7107's. Mr Izard will then stop building Robins in Hamilton and start building the "Hamilton Jet", named after that other, waterborne, Kiwi innovation.

Boeing will be taken over by Wal-Mart in an effort to boost profits and outsource all production to a factory built on the Mexican Border.

Airbus will be bought out by Ryan Air and go down the pan after MOL declares "I don't give a shit how badly built they are, as long as they're cheap"

Once EZI switches to Hamilton Jets the Q. "A-B = ?" will have the simple answer "H"